1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of data processing systems. More particularly, the invention relates to an improved apparatus and method for filtering email using disposable email addresses.
2. Description of the Related Art
Unsolicited commercial e-mail, or “spam” is used to advertise products or to broadcast some political or social commentary. Like computer viruses, spam has become a scourge on the Internet as hundreds of millions of unwanted email messages are transmitted daily to virtually every e-mail recipient coupled to the Internet. One of the primary reasons for the proliferation of spam is that it is an extremely effective, and inexpensive was to reach a very large number of people.
Internet service providers (“ISPs”) have invested significant expenses and added an enormous number of servers to do nothing more than spam filtering. Various filtering techniques may be employed including simple comparisons of email headers to that of known spammers (e.g., email subject and/or FROM address), to complex, digital analyses of email messages (e.g., performing a checksum or a fuzzy logic comparison to known spam messages).
Despite the amount of time and effort spent to develop effective filtering techniques, a substantial amount of spam still makes it through to intended recipients. Accordingly, what is needed is an improved apparatus and method for filtering unwanted email messages.